The Major Arcana
by Polar Thestral
Summary: Response to a Sliding Doors Challenge from Ery. When Liz's powers start acting up her clairvoyant abilities turn her world inside out. Two very different Liz's from two very different realities trade places. CCUC


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CHAPTER ONE: THE CHARIOT

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_VII - Dare to choose your own course_

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Liz's eyes stared dully out into the black landscape. The boy in the driver's seat beside her was only watching the road with his peripheral vision. His companion was not usually this quiet and it was causing him great concern as they drove further into the desert. He turned his gaze back to the tail lights leading the way, but only for a moment. Liz Parker was staring out of the window seemingly riveted by the landscape hidden in the dark. 

Her hands had lost their usual calm grace; she was still fidgeting with her sleeves trying to cover the sparks on her skin. He turned back to the road because he didn't want to make her feel worse by staring. The outcome of tonight would have a great effect on _his _ future life as well. He knew that one day he'd start 'popping like tin foil in a microwave' and the selfish part of him was glad that by the time that moment came they might have already figured out how to fix it. 

"Not long now, Liz…" He risked a longer glance at her. She hadn't responded. He wanted to sigh but knew that impatience was something that Liz didn't need at the moment. To stop himself from worrying, he'd simply watch the tail lights of Max's Chevelle as he wound through sand grass in the New Mexican desert, looking for some place secluded enough to test his hypothesis. 

Finally, Max's tail lights shined red and Kyle slowed his car down, pulling up beside his old nemesis. Max was already out, quickly pulling a bag from the passenger seat and slamming the door behind him. Liz flinched and sat up, checking that her hands were still covered, she curled them into her lap. Kyle rested his hands on the wheel of his car. 

"Are you sure you want to do this?" 

"Of course I'm sure, Max is right, it's our best shot." She licked her lips and smiled, reassuringly, at her friend. Liz tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, opened the door and let herself out. Kyle felt instantly guilty, he should have opened the door for her; _he_ should be the one comforting _her_. He took a deep breath, opened the door and jogged over to them. 

Liz was lying on the ground, her hair splayed around her head, where Max was positioning five healing stones. Her hands had finally fled their cave. One of them was burrowing into her closed eyelid in search of something. 

"Ok…what are we doing here again?" He muttered when he couldn't have felt more useless hovering behind them. 

"According to the book we can use the healing stones to amplify my powers, if we do that…it might wipe out whatever's happening inside of her." Max said calmly as he placed down the last stone. Kyle didn't understand any of what Max had said. 

"What can I do?" 

"Just stay back," Max said curtly. Kyle nodded once. Of course. Stay back. Right. 

Max looked down at Liz's closed eyes for a moment, if he was right, she shouldn't feel any pain, it should be an elevated connection between them. That was fine. He could handle that. 

He reached his arm out over her; his hand hovered palm down over her stomach. Kyle held his breath. Max exhaled and white light shot from his palm down past her naval to filter out over her organs. 

Max had been wrong, very wrong. The sensation wasn't a sweet warmth, or even a slight burn, it was a horrible, twisting sensation like hot coals were being poked around amongst her internal organs. He couldn't feel what she was feeling, to him it was just the familiarity of Liz's presence close to him. 

"It hurts!" Liz screamed, she squinted her eyes tightly against the pain and writhed beneath Max's white light. 

"Take a deep breath, it won't be much longer," he replied. 

Power surged through her, power of the like she had never felt before. She loathed amber stones everywhere. The crackling energy was taking over her body, making her lurch and squirm without choosing to. She knew she had to resist. Whatever was happening wasn't meant to happen, she somehow knew it intuitively. 

He was going to hurt her again. Tess's face, and Max's son's face – a face she had never seen – blinked back at her from beneath her pounding eyelids. She knew she would never be as important to him as the search for his son. She was not his blood, and it hurt her. He had infected her and the symptoms had shown during her Harvard interview and she'd ruined her chances. Her dream was gone. How could she not be hurt? He'd slept with the girl who had taken Alex away from her. She was fighting with her parents, because of crimes they'd committed that Max had made her most culpable for (_Why do I have to hold the gun?_). She tried to stop the thoughts but as the pain grew more intense her ability to recall happy memories faded. 

The charge of her anger combined with the negative force invading her made her feel like an electrical surge was about to short-circuit her body. Her eyes were closed, so she didn't see when Max's white light turned red with rage. She didn't feel it when her body began to levitate three feet off the ground. 

She had felt something strange in the lab when she had stared at the blank skin of her face, her features had disappeared in the mirror. _She_ was disappearing into him. She needed to break free. In that moment the love that was clenching a fist around her heart began to feel the cold pound of hate in the muscle beneath its clutches. The two sensations waged war inside of her and she found herself in such agony that she knew she had to put an end to this before she exploded. 

"Max, please, I can't!" 

At the sound of her shrill, dry voice Kyle attempted to pull Max back, but he fell away with a simple shrug of Max's shoulder. 

"No!" 

Too late. 

Liz gasped and her body arched as flashes launched themselves across her eyes at a much faster and disorientating pace than ever before. The flashes were mosaics of kisses and tears, shouting and whispering: everything that her love had given her. But then they changed form and charged forward from the past to the present like a biographical film. 

_"I wish that this could be something…more…but…we're just…" Max struggled, biting his lower lip.  
"Different," Liz finished for him with a sad smile. _

"Look, Max, I know it was stupid to write those things down but I had to so that in the future, if someone touches me the way you did, I'll know how it's supposed to feel." 

"Thankyou, Liz."   
"For what?"   
"For giving me one more reason to envy Max Evans…" Liz blushed and looked down. Michael watched her curiously for a moment. The moment stretched and became unbearably tense with kinetic energy. When her eyes looked up, he leant across the divide between them and kissed her. She stiffened in wide eyed shock as his breath rushed across her lips, "you may want to get better window locks, for when your criminals happen to be human." 

"And what if I were to believe you now?...What about tomorrow? When you wake up and all of your fantasies just go away?" Her face was sobering but though Max's smile diminished, the mischievous twinkle in his eye persevered.   
"Then I'll still have you…" He whispered. 

"You're the one Liz, the only one…" Liz heard his voice clear in her head even as the dreamy smile faded from her face. For Max was standing in the rain kissing another girl very passionately. A girl he had told her he wasn't interested in five minutes ago. 

"You had a flash when you kissed her Max? I guess I'm not so special after all huh?" 

"Stop!" Liz managed to scream somewhere through the lockjaw that was jamming her teeth through her lower lip. She felt as if her rational mind was leaving her and she was fighting for her last chance at remaining sane. 

"Hold on, it's working! I can feel it!" Max could feel the power surging through him, if only she would trust him. 

"No!" Liz shouted as she felt herself being pulled back in to a vortex of flashes. Her stomach rolled in protest. 

_"I'm happy for you…" Liz smiled sadly at Max. He hugged her.   
"He'll come around Liz…"   
"What makes you say that?"   
Max smiled sadly back, "because anyone who had the opportunity to receive your love would give up their Metallica CDs for it." There was a brief pause before they both collapsed into laughter holding on to each other in uncontrollable mirth. _

Liz looked on in horror as her efforts were finally and heartbreakingly rewarded. Kyle was next to her looking very pale, they both appeared naked and she could hear future Max's voice, "I need you to help me fall out of love with you…" 

Tears slid down a babies face as it clasped onto her hair, tugging playfully. "You'd miss me, wouldn't you?" She almost choked on the words, her baby blinked at her and a gurgling sound escaped it's mouth. "I just miss them…he…he doesn't understand…he's never had…what we have…what I had with them." 

"You're not to see Max Evans ever again." 

"What!" 

"I said we don't think you should keep it…I know it seems cruel Liz, but to give up everything that you could be, because of a boy who quite frankly—" 

"You can't stop me from seeing Max, we'll see each other in school…" 

"We can make sure you make the right decision…" 

"Are you kicking me out?" 

"We just want what's best for you." 

"I love Max." 

"You know, Michael, you know already." 

"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, Liz, but there was one thing that I got right, bringing you into my life, being with you, loving you…" Max pulled Liz close to him and her head fell instinctively against his chest while the desert air whipped across her face. She looked up at the sky. Tess was gone. 

"I know I don't say it, I've never said it, Liz but—"   
"It's ok, really, I know, I unders—"   
"I love you. I had to say it once." A tear rolled down Liz's cheek but before it could fall from her face, it was trapped against her flushed skin by his finger, and his wedding band. 

When Liz saw the face in her head she shifted, discomfit obvious on her face. Kyle finally came forward, hovering very close to Max, he tried to reach him through the King's cloud of determination. 

"Max…" 

"Just a bit more…" He directed most of this at Liz as if Kyle was her voice now that she had apparently lost her own, "Liz, you have to trust me." 

_"You don't understand…our relationship has…we spent the night together…" _

"I don't like the way you look at him, ok? Is that so hard to believe? Every time you smile at him I feel like you're trying to decide if you made the wrong decision!"   
"I didn't get a decision!"   
"Exactly, you settled! Do you have any idea what that does to me?" 

"No, Maria you can't let go of your dreams because if you do that then, then you're just…me." 

Suddenly pain seemed to pull at the sides of head. Her temples throbbed as hooks sunk through skin and she felt like she was being torn apart. Her eyes opened and the flashes stopped, she could only see a red light and she knew she was dying. "I CAN'T!" A last charge rushed through her body and exploded in red light where Max's hand still hovered above her. Instantly he was thrown away and Liz covered her face rolling on the desert ground and cowering in pain, disorientation and fatigue. 

She could hear movement beyond her veil of dark chocolate locks, he was moving towards her and she put up her hand to stop him. Without knowing she was speaking, she whispered out the only words that could describe what that horrible experience had done to her, "Just stop hurting me." 

"I wasn't trying to…" His voice sounded worried, she looked up at him with damp questioning eyes, he looked so concerned and Kyle was standing behind him with a restraining arm on his shoulder, the same expression etched on his boyish features. 

"No…But, Max, you do…" She choked on the words, an overwhelming sensation of defeat was snaking up her spine and she loathed the fact that she could ever hate him for saving her life. She couldn't hate her hero, it wasn't his fault that she had completely destroyed any chance of making Harvard, it wasn't his fault that her grades had never been the same since sophomore year. But she wished with all her heart to blame him for every black particle of her wearied soul. "You always do." She looked up with deep resentment in her eyes that Max was unable to comprehend. "Why did you sleep with her?" 

A resounding silence was all that remained. Max looked up at Kyle. Kyle raised an eyebrow. They seemed to communicate something through their eyes and then Max turned his face back to looking politely confused. She could feel a heavy anger building up inside her stomach. 

_"WHY_?" She bit out a little more ferociously. 

"Liz…" He reached for her to help her up but she lurched backwards, so his hand paused mid-approach and he sat back a little more cautiously. She wouldn't let him back away, the words had wanted to come for so long and after experiencing the agonies of her love in such a pure and uncensored way, she didn't have the strength to hold what she felt back any more. 

"Every single time you mention your son I am reminded of what you did to me." Kyle stepped back a little, his eyes flicking between Liz and the very confused Max Evans. "How you were unfaithful I—" Max was smiling at her rambling, the faint curl of his lip that he couldn't suppress made her stomach churn. Didn't he care about what he put her through at all? "How could you not know that?" 

"Liz…please…" He reached for her again and this time when she lurched back she fell on the ground as ungracefully as humanly possible. 

"_Stay away_! You're _doing_ this…" 

"No, I'm not." He sighed, his eyes imploring her to just calm down, take a deep breath and realise she was rambling nonsensically. "Liz, please, please…" His hand reached out as she shook her head, tears running down her face. He made the mistake of trying to brush them away and the green sparks that had begun to infest her whenever he was around, broke out savagely beneath his hand. She screamed. 

Kyle could no longer hold himself back and he knew someone else would definitely kill Max if he knew that Max was causing her any unnecessary pain. "No-Max-Max-Max-Stop! Listen to her! Do you want to kill her?" Max immediately released her. This time she basically passed out, her head lolled close to the ground. 

Kyle picked her crumpled form up and walked toward his car, while Max did his best to clean up the stones. Her eyes were closed when Max caught up with them. He kept flicking glances at her pale face. "Zan's never bothered her before….And what the hell did she mean, _unfaithful_?" He said incredulously. 

"She's just a little disorientated…why didn't you stop when she asked you to?" Kyle said quickly, casting Max a dark glance. Max blanched. 

"I thought she was just panicking. I was so sure…we'll have to check the book again. I'll get Tess to look it over with her tomorrow." He paused, flicking his keys around his fingers, he turned back to Kyle. "You don't suppose that she…I mean, that she's developed some feelings for—" 

"She's already got a family, she doesn't need to break up yours. You better get home; I'll take Liz home." 

Max opened the door to Kyle's car and waited until Kyle had Liz in and buckled up before he closed the door again, nodded at Kyle and sauntered off toward his Jeep. Liz's vision blurred as she watched Max walk toward his car. Chevelle. Jeep. Chevelle. Jeep. Liz shook her head, confused. After closing her eyes for a second to get her bearings, she looked again, pleased to see her sight was a little better. Max closed the door of his jeep and raised his hand to her in a hesitant wave. Liz closed her eyes, her hallucinations obviously were only just beginning. 

"It'll be all right, Liz…I can take you back to my place if you like?" 

"What?" She slurred, "no..ergh…just take me home." 

Kyle smiled with relief, at least this expedition had achieved one thing, he was sick of seeing his favourite lovebirds fighting. 

**TBC...**


End file.
